"My dear wife, my sweet daughter! How uneasy will you not feel when to-morrow you see neither my son nor myself coming back home," murmured the old man sadly, and, without offering any resistance, he followed the officer who took him in charge and conducted him to the subterranean cells of the abbey.
CHAPTER VI.
SISTER AGNES.
Shortly after the count's departure from the abbey, the reinforcement of a hundred soldiers promised by him arrived at the place. Their captain spent the night in preparing the fortifications for the defence. Under the physical lash of their foreman, above all intimidated by the fear of the fiery furnace of hell, the serfs and villeins transported to the platform of the walls large stones, logs of wood and heavy beams, intended to serve as projectiles against the expected assailants. They were also made to carry heavy barrels of oil and pitch, which, boiled in large caldrons, were held ready to be poured over the heads of the enemy; besides a large number of bags full of chalk dust, whose contents, dropped upon the besiegers, would serve to blind them.
During the night and part of the morning the cattle of the abbey's domain were driven within its walls. Thither also a large number of the abbey's serfs and villeins congregated, summoned by the abbot to its defence. Many more, however, took to flight, determined to join the Northmans the moment they disembarked and to glean whatever they could in the wake of the invaders' tracks.
Many "Franks", as the free holders of little farms were styled, who lived in the environs of St. Denis, bundled up their most valuable havings and went for shelter behind the walls of the abbey. The court-yards and galleries of the cloister became by the hour more encumbered with a frightened crowd, whose baggage was piled up high hither and thither, while cattle of every description were huddled close together in the garden and on a spacious meadow that was enclosed within the fortifications.
Finally, the abbot himself, helped by his canons who were armed with spades and mattocks, was busily engaged in the work of hastily burying under the ground of a little sequestered court all the rich paraphernalia of the church—vases, reliquaries, chalices, monstrances, statues, crosses, candelabra, chalice-covers, and other holy utensils wrought in silver or solid gold, and enriched with costly ornaments,—all proceeding from the toil and taxes of the serfs and villeins. A small group of priests were upon their knees in the basilica, imploring, amid moans, the assistance of heaven and invoking all manner of maledictions upon the heads of the Northmans.
The larger part of the day had been spent in continual frights. The men at the lookout, who kept watch on the ramparts above the gate, saw it frequently open in order to give passage to belated serfs and herds of cattle, or to wagons filled with the fodder needed for feeding the large number of horses and other animals that had been crowded within the walls. Two of these conveyances, loaded with hay, and each drawn by a double yoke of oxen, were conducted by a man of sinister face and barely dressed in rags. The man was well known in the abbey. So soon as he hove in sight, a monk of large paunch, who was placed at the wicket of the gate, cried:
"Blessings upon you and your load! We have so many cattle within that we have been in fear of want of provender for them. Have you any tidings of those pagan Northmans? Have their vessels been seen on the Seine? Are they near or still far away?"
"They are said to be drawing nearer. But thanks to God, the abbey is impregnable. Oh! A curse upon these Northmans!" answered the serf, whose name was Savinien. As the man spoke, a strange smile flitted over his careworn countenance; he cast a sly side-smile upon the load of hay that was heaped up high on the wagons and added: "I have driven my oxen so fast, in order to place myself at the order of our holy abbot, that, I fear, the poor brutes are foundered.—See how heavy they breathe!"
"They will not have to blow long. They will be speedily killed to feed the large number of noble Franks who have fled hither for refuge," replied the monk.